Michelle Travis

Professor and Dean's Circle Scholar

Full-Time Faculty

Biography

Professor Michelle Travis is a Dean’s Circle Scholar and co–director of USF’s Labor and Employment Law Program. She specializes in employment law with a focus on disability discrimination, sex discrimination, and work/family balance. Her interdisciplinary scholarship uses social cognition and sociology research to reveal how antidiscrimination law could be used to eliminate structural, organizational, and cognitive biases in the workplace. She regularly speaks on these topics around the country, including at a recent Senate Roundtable as an expert on workplace flexibility. Travis serves on the editorial board of the Chicago–Kent Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal, and her articles have been published in the Vanderbilt Law Review, the North Carolina Law Review, and the Washington and Lee Law Review, among others. She is a founding member of the Work and Family Researchers Network and she is a former chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Employment Discrimination Law. Travis teaches Employment Law, Torts, Remedies, and Work/Family Law, has received four distinguished teaching awards, and was the associate dean for faculty scholarship at USF from 2013-2016.

Education

BA, Cornell University

JD, Stanford University

Experience

Assistant Professor, Lewis & Clark Law School

Adjunct Professor, Santa Clara School of Law

Teaching Fellow, Stanford Law School

Employment Litigation Associate, Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe

Law Clerk, Hon. David M. Ebel, U.S. Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit

Expertise

Employment Law

Employment Discrimination Law

Labor and Employment Law

Work/Family Law

Awards & Distinctions

John Adler Distinguished Professor Award, USF School of Law (2016)

Distinguished Professor Award, USF School of Law (2006)

Leo Levinson Award for Most Outstanding Professor, Lewis & Clark Law School (2003)

Presenter, “Disqualifying Universality Under the Americans With Disabilities Act Amendments Act,” Michigan State University College of Law's symposium,, “Persuasion in Civil Rights Advocacy,” East Lansing, Mich (April 2015)

Presenter, “Disqualifying Universality under the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act,” UC Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco, Calif. (November 2014)

Presenter, “Disabling the Gender Pay Gap: Lessons from the Social Model of Disability,” University of Denver, Sturm College of Law, “Revisiting Sex: Gender and Sex Discrimination Fifty Years after the Civil Rights Act,” Denver, Colo. (January 2014)

Presenter, “The 'Part and Parcel' of Impairment Discrimination,” Loyola University Chicago School of Law and Northwestern University School of Law, “Seventh Annual Labor and Employment Law Colloquium,” Chicago, Ill. (September 2012)

Commentator, “The Flexibility Stigma and the Caretaker Penalty: Legal and Sociological Perspectives,” Work and Family Research Network Inaugural Conference, New York, N.Y. (June 2012)

Presenter, “What a Difference a Day Makes, or Does It? Work-Family Balance and the Four-Day Work Week,” Connecticut Law Review's Symposium, “Redefining Work: Implications of the Four-Day Work Week,” Hartford, Conn. (October 2009)

Presenter, “What a Difference a Day Makes, or Does It? Work-Family Balance and the Four-Day Work Week,” University of Connecticut School of Law, Law Review Symposium, “Redefining Work: Implications of the Four-Day Work Week,” Hartford, Conn. (October 2009)

Presenter, “Toward a New Universality: The Americans With and Without Disabilities Act,” Washington University School of Law Fifth Annual Colloquium on Current Scholarship in Labor and Employment Law, St. Louis, Mo. (September 2010)

Presenter, “Review of United States Supreme Court and California Supreme Court Cases on Labor and Employment in the 2009-2010 Term,” Bar Association of San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif. (June 2010)

Presenter, “The Legal 'Back Door' to Work-Family Balance,” UC Hastings College of the Law Sixth International Carework Conference, San Francisco (August 2009)

Presenter, “Review of Labor and Employment Cases Decided in the 2008-09 Term,” Bar Association of San Francisco, (July 2009)

Presenter, “The ADA and You—How Laws Intended to Help the Disabled Affect Those With and Without Disabilities,” University of San Francisco School of Law, (March 2009)

Presenter, “Lashing Back at the ADA Backlash: How the Americans With Disabilities Act Benefits Americans Without Disabilities,” University of Denver Sturm College of Law and University of Colorado Law School Second Annual Colloquium on Current Scholarship in Labor and Employment Law, Denver and Boulder, Colo. (September 2007)

Moderator, “Past, Present, and Future: High-Skilled Immigrants in the U.S. Workforce,” University of San Francisco Law Review Symposium, “Evolving Definition of the Immigrant Worker: The Intersection Between Employment, Labor, and Human Rights Law,” (February 2009)

Presenter, “Building a More Flexible and Accessible Profession: What Changes are Possible?,” Bar Association of San Francisco, San Francisco (January 2009)

Presenter, “Pregnancy, the PDA, and the ADA,” Yale Law School, Yale Journal of Law and Feminism Symposium,, “Respecting Expecting: The 30th Anniversary of the PDA,” New Haven, Conn. (November 2008)

Presenter, “The Social Science Behind Family Responsibilities Discrimination and the Prospects for Caregiver Non-Discrimination Legislation,” UC Hastings College of the Law Conference on, “Family Responsibilities Discrimination: Lessons for the Use of Stereotyping Evidence and Implicit Bias in Employment Cases,” San Francisco (February 2008)

Presenter, “Lashing Back at the ADA Backlash: How the Americans with Disabilities Act Benefits Americans Without Disabilities,” Northwestern University School of Law Employment Law Colloquium, Chicago, Ill. (February 2009)

Moderator, “Affirmative Obligations: Accommodations in the Workplace,” UC Hastings College of the Law National Disability Law Symposium, San Francisco (February 2007)

Moderator, “Dispute Resolution in Action: Examining the Reality of Employment Discrimination Cases,” 2007 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools Sections on Employment Discrimination and Alternative Dispute Resolution, (January 2007)

Presenter, “Gender Stereotyping and the Full-Time Face-Time Norm,” University of San Francisco School of Law Third Annual WorkLife Law Conference on Working Time, (March 2006)

Moderator, “Gender Stereotyping—Expanding the Boundaries of Title VII,” 2006 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Employment Discrimination Law, Washington, D.C. (January 2006)

Presenter, “The Full-Time Face-Time Norm: Lessons from the United Kingdom,” 2006 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Labor Relations and Employment Law, Washington, D.C. (January 2006)

Presenter, “Recapturing the Transformative Potential of Employment Discrimination Law,” University of Connecticut School of Law Workshop Series, Hartford, Conn. (April 2005)

Presenter, “Stereotyping, Opting Out, and the Law: The Family Responsive Workplace in Europe and the United States,” American University Washington College of Law Second Annual WorkLife Law Conference on Working Time, Washington, D.C. (March 2005)

Presenter, “Supreme Court Review: What the U.S. and California Supreme Court Decisions Have Done For (or To) Labor and Employment Law,” Bar Association of San Francisco, San Francisco (July 2004)

Presenter, “Legislative Approaches to Flexibility and Reduced Working Time,” American University Washington College of Law First Annual WorkLife Law Conference on, “Working Time for Working Families—Europe and the USA,” Washington, D.C. (June 2004)

Presenter, “Telecommuting: The Escher Stairway of Work/Family Conflict,” University of Maine School of Law Symposium on "Law, Labor, and Gender,", Portland, Maine (September 2002)

Presenter, “Sex Discrimination in the Virtual Workplace,” University of Texas School of Law Conference on, “Subversive Legacies: Learning from History/Constructing the Future,” Austin, Texas (November 2002)